Warhammer 40,000 novel The Infinite and the Divine is getting a sequel

Robert Rath is returning to write The Wicked and the Warped, a sequel to his acclaimed Warhammer 40,000 novel The Infinite and the Divine. The announcement came via Warhammer Community, and no release date has been set yet.

The original book follows two necron rivals — Orikan the Diviner and Trazyn the Infinite — immortal machine-beings whose petty feud over an artifact spirals into something the entire universe ends up suffering for. It's widely regarded as one of the best 40K novels precisely because of its tone: dry, absurdist humor that sits closer to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy than to grimdark war fiction, complete with a scene set in Necron small claims court. The sequel picks up that dynamic and flips it — Orikan and Trazyn are forced to cooperate this time, investigating what happened to an expedition lost on a planet corrupted by Chaos. Bickering their way through daemon-infested ruins sounds like a natural fit for both characters.

The Infinite and the Divine stood out when it released because Warhammer fiction had long been dominated by human and Space Marine perspectives. Books written from the point of view of 40K's alien factions — orks, aeldari, necrons — were rarer, and Rath's novel made a strong case that those perspectives could carry a full story with wit and depth. Other alien-POV novels like Ghazghkull Thraka: Prophet of the Waaagh and Voidscarred have followed, but The Infinite and the Divine remains the benchmark for that corner of Black Library publishing.

While the wait for The Wicked and the Warped continues, Games Workshop is reprinting The Infinite and the Divine in hardback — a good entry point for anyone who missed it the first time. The audiobook narrated by Richard Reed has also drawn praise and is worth considering as an alternative format.